"
"Listen!" the Doctor broke in; "if you wish to confess, send for
your father confessor."
"I am not confessing to you; I am defending myself."
"Who is accusing you, then? Your own bad conscience."
"I have no bad conscience, but I am accused unjustly."
"Who is accusing you? The starling?"
"My wife and children accuse me, and don't wish to see me."
"No; if you have sent them to Amboise, they cannot see you, and, as
a matter of fact, they do not wish to."
"To think that I, the son of King Charles VII, must hear this sort
of thing from a quack doctor! I have always liked people of low
rank; Olivier the barber was my friend."
"And the executioner Tristan was your godfather."
"He was provost-marshal, you dog!"
"The tailor became a herald."
"And the quack doctor a chancellor! Put that to my account and
praise me, ingrate! for having protected you from the nobles, and
for only having regard to merit."
"That is certainly a redeeming feature."
Just then a man appeared in the doorway with his cap in his hand.
"Who is there?" cried the King. "Is it a murderer?"
"No, it is only the gardener," the man answered.
"Ha! ha! gardener!--your cow has calved, hasn't she?"
"I possess no cow, sire, nor have I ever had one."
The King was beside himself, and flew at Coctier's throat.
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